but the moon as well
considering
how day will be night
or how the summer moon

is out by day, over there
I am trying to sort through
the facts
of misunderstood memory

you follow?

in one of those
conversations
no one exactly
hears a sound
but uh huh uh huh
that’s right
the punctuation

we’re all in agreement
because
we want to agree

December Storm

so there it is
not even
a winter crazy
of snow and snow and snow

but thundering
and lightning
before morning
already awake
the ridiculous rain
beat on the windows
a counter
to Katherine’s breathing
and the dog sighs

already awake
so the surprise
wasn’t in the storm
but in me
right?

the craziness of
my own past
leaving me a little weak
tired

a thought:
to run out
into the storm
to battle
where no battle was

proof
that more than alive
I was living

dialogue

she had no language
for what she
said to God
or what she
wanted to say

because closer
to the truth

was a certainty
that the language
would overwhelm her

that the radiance
of those words

would deny her
the radiance
of her world:

she looked at it
the world
of night and day
of an approaching storm
with its
black thunderous holiness
sweeping over the river
toward the city

she knew
in that other language
the one of dialogues

the holiness
wouldn’t disappear
nor storm
river
city

they would simply be
more than she could
ever bear

the whole world
more and more
and ever
unbearable

•

Mark Statman's most recent books are the poetry collections A Map of the Winds (Lavender Ink, 2013) and Tourist at a Miracle (Hanging Loose, 2010), and the translations Black Tulips: The Selected Poems of José María Hinojosa (University of New Orleans, 2012) and, with Pablo Medina, Federico García Lorca's Poet in New York (Grove, 2008). His work appears in nine anthologies and he has published in numerous journals, including Tin House, South Dakota Review, and American Poetry Review. He is an Associate Professor of Literary Studies at Eugene Lang College, The New School for the Liberal Arts.